Assetization: Turning Things into Assets in Technoscientific Capitalism, edited by Kean Birch and Fabian Muniesa (2020) MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 338pp., $US40 (paperback) ISBN 9780262539173

Contrary to common belief, it is not the commodity but the asset that defines capitalism today. An asset is not a thing, or a matter of substance, but rather a logical and economic form given to something – a piece of land, a patent, a human emotion, traffic through a website – in order to own or control it or its properties as a revenue stream. Assetization is about not just extending accounting categories and the logics of capitalization and accrual to new relations, but also a socially transformative process generating new forms of ownership, control and revenue, and new subjects and subjectivities to inhabit them. Its theme is social constructivism: assets are made, not born, and conversely, at least in principle, anything can be turned into an asset.